Taree Mackenzie
Taree Mackenzie
(b. 1980, Melbourne, Victoria. Lives and works in Melbourne)
Taree Mackenzie works across video and installation, exploring the perceptual effects of colour, light and space. Her practice uses lighting to create visual effects and different ways to frame colours in space. Mackenzie also creates kinetic live-feed works, comprising projectors and basic visual devices, that act like moving images.
Pepper’s ghost effect, circles, 4 variations, 2023, is a new commission that builds on Mackenzie’s explorations of the ‘Pepper’s ghost’ effect, a technique originating in theatre of the 1800s that employs light and colour to create the illusion of a ‘ghostly’ figure. In her Pepper’s ghost works, Mackenzie uses angled panes of glass to create layered optical effects; however, unlike typical Pepper’s ghost staging, Mackenzie’s works reveal the apparatus used to create the effect. As visitors manoeuvre through Mackenzie’s installation for Melbourne Now, their movements influence the nature of the illusion.
Solo exhibitions include those at Neon Parc, 2018; Hairdryer Work, TCB Art Inc., Melbourne, 2016; Line Shadows, Studio 12 at Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, 2014; and un Magazine 6.1 launch, Death Be Kind, Melbourne 2012. Selected group shows include those at Front Beach, Back Beach, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Mornington, 2022; Australian Light, Warrnambool Art Gallery, Warrnambool 2022; Set in Motion, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand, 2016; Dancing Umbrellas, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2016; and NEW14, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2014. Mackenzie holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) from the Victorian College of the Arts. Her work is held in the collections of ACMI; Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Zealand; Heide Museum of Modern Art; and QAGOMA.